Choices
by ItsLukasBondevik
Summary: Lisa didn't know why she ignored her flight instinct when those blue eyes met hers once again.


Lisa stood at the door at the foot of the building, wondering what she was doing here. She wondered why she had a basket of goodies in one hand—candies, cookies (freshly baked by her), a book or two, clean socks—and a vase of flowers in the other. She wondered if she should just turn around and walk—no, _run_ as fast as she could in the other direction. It's not like she hadn't done it before. It's not like she didn't race her way across an entire city in the opposite direction, even resort to a bit of grand theft auto.

She was in the lobby now. She didn't even notice moving from outside, only that the overly clean smell was about to make her sneeze. Lisa covered her nose with her shirtsleeve, both of her hands completely occupied and walked towards the counter. She didn't know what to say, if this was even remotely a good idea. In a way she felt as though she was obliged to be here, seeing as she was the reason he was here. Though her mind told her that he was the reason that she was the reason he was here, but before she could put that into a coherent thought a voice interrupted her.

"Miss?" Lisa looked towards the nurse at the counter, who was looking a little concerned at her. Pushing a strand of red hair out of her face, Lisa smiled at the woman.

"Hi," she said brightly, leaning up against the counter and setting the basket down on the ground between her feet. "I'm here to see someone." She handed over an official looking paper to the woman, whose eyes widened very slightly before she nodded. The nurse didn't say a word to her as she wrote down the room number she was looking for, and pointed her in the right direction. "Thanks," she said, feeling a little concerned at the nurse's slightly immobilized appearance. She followed the directions, two flights up to a rather out of the way little corridor in the hospital, her heart suddenly pounding.

The last time she saw this man, he tried to kill her. Tried, and failed. Lisa didn't know what she was doing, didn't know why she was doing it, but she knew that for some reason, she just had to get it done. A man was waiting outside of the room, standing before the door. "Sorry miss, he gets no visitors." Lisa showed him the page as well, permission to enter the room and visit this man that was processed for her by Keefe himself. Though the politician was confused, he granted her request with no questions asked. For a moment the officer wanted to deny her access, but he thought better of it. "If you need me, call me," he said warningly.

"I will," she replied, averting her eyes from his concerned ones. She rested them on the doorknob, terrified of what she was going to see, terrified of what she was going to feel, of what he was going to say. After a moment's hesitation, a moment she could have used to walk away, Lisa entered the room quietly and closed the door with a soft click behind her. The first thing she noticed was the equipment in the room. Something was beeping gently in the corner, there was a lot of lights and hook ups that she couldn't understand how he could sleep at night.

Another step into the room brought to her attention that he was the only one in here, and he was handcuffed to the bed, though she figured he probably wasn't going anywhere anyway. One final step, right next to the edge of the gurney, brought her attention to his face. His eyes were closed, his breathing easy, but he looked uneasy in his sleep. She could see the texture of his bandages through his thin hospital gown where her father had shot him in the chest. The one around his hand where she shot him. The one around his throat where she stabbed him with a pen. Lisa knew there was more but she didn't want to think about that right now.

She put the flowers on the nightstand, and the basket beside them. She stole one last look at the man, silently grateful that he was asleep, and made for the door.

"Leese?" She froze in her step. Her heart was pounding, her body felt like it was in a blizzard the way it started to shake, and she wanted nothing more than to run away and hide. "Is that you?" His voice was harsh and raspy, but not like it had been at first. The surgery had done wonders to the damage that she had, rightfully Lisa reminded herself, caused to him.

She wanted to turn around, but she wasn't sure if her motor skills would allow her to do that, if her head would let her look him in the face again. "Yeah," she said, her voice sounding like it belonged to another person. "Yeah, it's me." There was a still silence as she waited for him to ask her why she was here, to ask her anything at all. But he said nothing, and, perturbed, Lisa turned around to look at him. His blue eyes caught hers, and she was enthralled by the color, the depth of them. Not that she would admit it to anyone, despite everything he put her through, those eyes would never cease to make her breath fall short.

Jackson Rippner was sitting up in his bed, and she saw that it was not without effort. "Thank you," he said amiably, looking at the gifts she had brought him.

"Don't mention it," she replied coolly, her mind screaming at her to leave, that she had no reason to be here and she was crazy for walking into this room. In another life, she might have liked him a little bit, Lisa realized. He was handsome, if you ignored the battle scars. He had a face you could never forget, a sort of beauty that comes along in a man once in a million. "Well, goodbye."

"Wait." Lisa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, watching him with a frown. "Aw, Lisa, don't look at me like that," he said with a cock of his head, leaning against the wall that his bed was pushed up against. She was about to retort, but he interrupted her. "I'm lucky to be alive, the doctor's told me."

"So am I," she snapped back, and he looked very slightly amused, but hid it quickly beneath that calm mask that unnerved her so much back on the flight. Now, instead of unnerving her, it just made her furious, made her want to hit him so hard he'd never wake back up, never terrorize her again. Stop haunting her dreams and nightmares every night and life would be as it should be.

He looked away from her for a moment, at the silhouetted officer through the blinds on the window, and then back to her. "I won't hurt you, Leese, and I don't lie."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't give me that crap," she said, resting against the wall, close to the door, ready to leave at a moment's notice. "You didn't even give me your real name, that was a lie from the very moment I met you, Jack."

He raised his eyebrows very slightly, and said, "What do you mean I didn't give you my real name?"

"You expect me to believe that you just happened to have the same initials as my father? So you could trick the stewardesses into thinking that I had stolen your wallet on the flight?" Jackson looked mildly amused again, and slid down more comfortably into his pillows, giving her what seemed to be a genuine smile at her deductive reasoning.

"There you go with the male driven, fact based logic," he noted, his voice filled with what seemed like pride. "Very good, Lisa. You learned something from our little misadventure." Hatred filled her up from top to bottom, and she was angry that he was treating her this way. Her hands clenched against her sides, trying to refrain from punching him in his smug, perfect face. "I know you hate me," he said quietly, looking away from her and straight forward towards the far wall. "But you need to understand, Lisa, that I was the employee, not the employer."

"What does that mean?" she asked, her voice hesitant.

"It means," he replied, glancing back her way. "It means that I was doing what I was told to avoid getting killed myself. I'm sorry it had to be you caught in the middle of it Leese, but that's just how it turned out." His apology seemed so sincere that it caught her off guard and she slid into the wicker chair that was a little closer to his cot than where she had been standing, cupping her elbows in her palms. They were silent again, Jackson looking at her, and her staring intently at the floor.

She whispered, suddenly very afraid of the answer, "When we first met, you said something about killing your parents. You didn't really...?"

"Kill my parents?" he said, and she wanted to strangle him for that tone in his voice. Nothing phased him, nothing got to him, nothing hurt him. It was as if he had seen it all, done it all, heard it all, and she was just another brick in the wall to him. "No, I didn't kill my parents. They did. My, ah, for lack of a better word, employers." He leaned forward, towards her, his hand within reaching distance of her, and she resisted the urge to shrink back, wanting to prove that she was not afraid of him. "Why are you here, Leese? You hate me, I threatened you and your father, I tried to kill you. I'm not really the first person you should be visiting in the hospital."

"I put you here," she said without missing a beat, and snapped her mouth shut, wishing she could take that statement back.

His smile grew and she knew she could not regret anything more than what she had just said. "You felt bad?" he questioned, leaning his chin on his palm, the smile that had previously just been playing around the corner of his mouth now full blown across his face. "You felt bad for a couple of bullet holes and a pen to the throat? I'm touched Lisa! I've had worse, but you're the first person who almost killed me that felt bad about it."

"There is something wrong with you," she growled, standing up from her chair and turning to leave. She couldn't handle this anymore, she couldn't handle the fact that she had liked him so much, the first man she had actually seen herself with in so long and he had been nothing but a fake. It ruined her. The entire experience ruined her ability to trust anyone ever again. A warm hand gripped around her hand and held fast as she tried to tug her way free. "Let me go."

"Lisa," he said quietly, and she stopped struggling, the expression on his face giving her chills. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. I'm sorry I hurt you and lied to you and used you. If I could have done anything else, I would have. You hate me, that's fine. But this is the truth. I had no choice in the matter." For some reason, she believed him.

Maybe it was his eyes. They were so expressive, so believable, and for the first time since she met him, they didn't seem so cold and distant. Maybe it was his face. The smooth curve of those cheekbones, the slope of his jaw, the way his mouth was set that seemed so full of remorse. Maybe it was his voice, raspy, but still suave, still seductive and elusive and it just drew her in like a moth to a flame. Lisa couldn't speak, her eyes prickling with tears, but she promised herself that she could cry after she left the room. She would not give Jackson Rippner the satisfaction of making her cry again.

"I have to go," she said, thanking every deity she could think of for her voice not cracking when she said that. Jackson watched her, his hand not letting hers go. "Let me go, Jack," she warned, looking out towards the officer by the door of the room. "Or I'll call him in here. Aren't you in enough trouble as it is?"

"Why did you come here, Leese?" he asked again, pulling her closer to him. She nearly toppled over from the jerk, and steadied herself on the railing of his gurney, her eyes inches from his own. "There's something there you just don't want anyone to know. Something that I could understand, right? Something none of them could understand."

She said, "You don't know anything about me. Nothing that matters anyway."

"Believe what you want," he said with a slight shrug.

Lisa continued like he never spoke. "I want nothing more to do with you, Jack. I know that you're alive, and that's all I need. No death on my conscience or my dad's. Now let me go so I can get back to my life."

"And what a life it is." She watched his face for a moment, and he let go of her hand. "Do you still sit alone at the bar? Do you still eat your scrambled eggs at three in the morning, watch your late night movies with no one to keep you company but your troubled past and bleak future?" Lisa a clenched her teeth, hating that he was right, that even after all that, she really hadn't changed. Her habits were too controlling, too set that she couldn't do anything to change them. "Still drink those Sea Breezes, trying to pretend that they don't remind you of me?"

"What do you want from me?" she demanded in a whisper.

He shook his head. "Nothing that you're not willing to give." That comment sent her over the edge. She was so used to being walked over, pushed around, having things demanded of her in every aspect of her life. Her job had customers that wanted an arm and a leg to stay happy, her father wanted to know every minute of every day if she was all right, if she was traumatized in a ball on the floor of her bedroom. She got to choose whether or not she would be with a man, without that man holding a knife to her throat.

This was the first time, in a long time, that she got to really choose. She got to choose what to give away.

Lisa reached forward and linked her fingers in his hair, her mouth pressed against his in a violent frenzy that nearly knocked their teeth together. Jackson seemed unsurprised as he wrapped his arms around her back, one lacing through her auburn curls and holding her face close to his. Lisa had never been kissed like that before, with the passion and a fever and a need to have her there. It was overwhelming, dizzying almost, and she could feel her head spin. He deepened the kiss and she clenched the front of his hospital gown, her fingers hurting from how tightly she held it.

Her brain couldn't handle this level of betrayal, and was not longer trying to tell her to run, to go, to get away from this dangerous man at any costs. As a a residual message from her brain, Lisa pulled away abruptly, her lips bruised as she stared at Jackson with eyes wide in surprise. No words were exchanged as she left the room, her fingertips against her lips as she made her way down the hall. His eyes were burned into her memory, the perfect blue color that no longer seemed to frighten her. She associated warmth with those eyes, warmth and passion, a feeling between them that she hadn't recognized in years.

Lisa's heart was in her throat as she left the hospital and she glanced back once to see Jackson watching her walk away from his window, one hand against the glass, the other pulled behind him from where he had wheeled the gurney over. She stood still, watching him watch her, for almost a full minute, before getting into her car and driving off.

She swore that she would never see him again.

AN: In the cut scene of the movie, Jackson was still alive and wheeled off to the hospital. So, uh, here's my interpretation of after that ending.


End file.
